The Socialist Party of Nigeria, SPN, has praised Nigeria health workers for their contributions to the battle against coronavirus.
The SPN applauded the health workers, just as it congratulated workers in general on the occasion of this year’s Workers Day.
The remarks by the party are contained in the statement issued by the acting national chairman, Abiodun Bamigboye, and the national secretary, Chinedu Bosah.
Said the party: “The Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) salutes Nigerian workers both in formal and informal sectors on the occasion of this year’s international workers day which has come at a period the world is facing one of the greatest crises in modern history.
“We especially salute health workers who have been making sacrifices on a daily basis to fight the highly infectious COVID-19.”
The party said the extent of the spread of coronavirus had exposed the weakness of capitalist governments everywhere to prepare for the need of humanity.
“This is as a result of the long years of neo-liberal capitalist programme which entails among other things the poor funding of healthcare in order to promote private profits at the expense of people’s needs,” it said.
In a related development, SPN said it condemned the decision of the Federal Government to relax the lockdown imposed to prevent the spread of coronavirus which it said was still spreading fast.
It said: “We believe it is a reckless decision and an unacceptable risk of the lives of workers and poor masses.
“We strongly hold that an alternative approach should have been to extend the lockdown while ensuring adequate and regular distribution of palliatives including food and cash grant to every household through the trade unions and other democratic organisations and communities.
“This would have immediately resolved the problem of hunger while also mitigating rising insecurity. With these steps, workers and poor masses would have been more ready to stay at home a little longer until it is safe. The key to ensuring the lockdown is to increase testing, equip the hospitals, recruit more hands, provide adequate palliatives, and ensure improvement in the pay and conditions of health workers and frontline staff.
“A possible consequence of this rash decision is that the virus will burn through the population like wildfire, infect many and kill more people. This is an unconscionable risk of human life that we cannot agree with.”
The party said it was unfortunate that the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and trade unions seemed to support government’s decision.
“The SPN urge the labour movement to withdraw this support and be prepared to lead the working people to compel the government to provide adequate palliatives for the working and poor masses and also ensure mass testing, provide adequate decent isolation and quarantine centres, improve pay and conditions of health workers and reposition the health sector. The labour leadership must also be prepared to defend wages, salaries and safety of workers during and after the pandemic.
“The working people must realize that we are in this mess because of profit-first capitalist agenda of the successive governments in Nigeria and the world over. Therefore, as we struggle with demands placed on the government on the best way to contain the virus we must appreciate the need for a mass working people party on a socialist programme that will combine intervening in elections and building a mass movement to overthrow capitalism and form workers and poor government.”
